Heartseeker

by Melinda Beatty

  “It’s probably best to jaw on this behind a solid door,” Lark whispered.

  The moment the latch clicked up, I could tell we weren’t alone. The early-winter sun was setting and the rooms were dark but for the freshly lit fire and lanterns, so it took me a moment to notice the figure in the seat by the window. All thoughts of scheming with Lark scattered like leaves in the wind as Lamia Folque rose to greet us.

  26

  If Alphonse Renart was king of winter on his shining silver throne, Lady Folque looked the queen of summer as she stood by my window. Her cloth-of-gold gown trapped the oranges and pinks of the dying sunlight, turning her into a woman burning—more dazzling than midday in a hot wheat field. All the air seemed to go out of the room as the door shut behind us. Lark tensed at my shoulder.

  “Lady Folque,” I squeaked. “G-good met.”

  “And to you, Mayquin,” she answered silkily. “After this afternoon’s excitement, I wanted to assure myself that you were well.”

  “Well enough, my lady.”

  She advanced as I retreated. “I wondered if we might have a little chat, just you and I?” Her dark eyes flicked over me as I shuffled my feet back slow, not wishing to give any offense. “You’re not afraid of me, are you?”

  I pulled my heart out of my boots. “Yes, ma’am, I am a bit.”

  Lamia laughed like the tinkling of a hundred golden bells. “You are delightfully forthright, Mayquin—a quality so lacking in palace life. I rather respect the idea of telling truth to power.” She placed her hand over the great jewel at her breast. “On the honor of my family, you will be as safe with me as you would in a room by your own good self.”

  There was nothing I could see to make me think the woman wasn’t honest, but everything in my gut was telling me to hide under the bed till she got bored and left.

  “I reckon I’m dressed for running if I have to,” I replied.

  Lady Folque burst out in another peal of laughter. “I must say it’s rather rich to be thought so frightening! I’ll tell you what—I shall sit over here.” She glided back to her seat by the window. “And you may sit upon your bed. If I should make any alarming moves in your direction—which I shan’t, of course—I shouldn’t fancy my chances of catching you before you were able to make your escape through the door. Is that acceptable?”

  I’d outrun a nest of hornets I disturbed in the orchard the summer before, so I knew for sure I could outrun Lamia Folque. I nodded.

  “There now,” the councilwoman said, gracefully settling herself back into the chair. “We are both comfortable.” She turned to Lark, who was still half frozen at the door. “You may return in fifteen minutes to assist the Mayquin with whatever she requires.”

  Lark looked ready to grab me and flee. “Only?”

  “It’s okay,” I told her, half to calm her and half to calm myself. “I’ll be okay.”

  She nodded and, with a last suspicious look at Lady Folque, pulled the heavy chamber door shut. Not turning my back on the councilwoman, I hopped up on the edge of the great bed and sat uneasily.

  Lamia blinked slow and easy like a cat before a hearth. “You don’t like me, Mayquin,” she observed, as if it didn’t trouble her one way or the other. “And please, don’t deny it. I wouldn’t want any more harm to come to you.”

  I bit the inside of my lip. “I don’t know you, lady. I just know what I heard on the road.”

  “Ah, from Her Highness, no doubt. And you also know that two men who came from my service—though they turned out to be Ordish rebels—tried to kill you,” she said, matter-of-fact.

  “That didn’t boost my notion of your ladyship,” I admitted. There was no way I was risking another fib. My head might just split clean open.

  “I should think not. If I were in your place, I’d certainly be of the opinion that I was trying to kill you.”

  Uneasy, I scooted back to the middle of the bed. Lamia laughed again. “Oh, don’t be foolish, child. I’m here for exactly the reasons I said I was. I wanted to make sure you were well after the king’s questioning. I am sorry that you were made to endure it.”

  “Like I said, your ladyship, I’m well enough.” Feeling a bit bolder, I leaned forward. “Don’t suppose anything like that happens to you?”

  Lamia cocked her head, curious. “Anything like what, my dear?”

  “You know, if you use your cunning wrong.”

  “My cunning?”

  “You know, whatever it is you can do. I saw it when we met yestereve, though I couldn’t tell what it was.”

  “A cunning,” Lady Folque mused. “Funny, I never knew it had a name.”

  So I’d been right! “That’s what the Ordish call it. If I ain’t being too bold, ma’am, could I ask what it is? Your cunning?”

  Lamia sized me up. “How old are you, child?”

  “I been round the sun eleven times just before harvest, ma’am.”

  The lady nodded. “I was nearly of your years when I realized what it was.” She tapped a long, painted nail against the jewel at her breast. “I suppose, down south, such things are not quite so uncommon?”

  Curiosity was near busting out of me to learn the truth, but I bade myself be still. “What, cunning? I’m afraid I wouldn’t know, lady. I never met anyone else with one like mine. The Ordish have got little magics—glamours and the like. But you ain’t got one of those, have you? You got one like mine.”

  Lady Folque rose from her seat with a quiet swish and went to the hearth, resting her elbow on the mantel, where the flames danced with the gold in her gown. “Do you know, I have never thought to speak these words aloud to anyone? Then again, I never thought to meet anyone so well suited to understanding.”

  Somehow, I’d stopped worrying about her trying to do me a mischief. “How do you mean, ma’am?”

  “My father used to like to say that I could sell timber to a woodsman. Even when I was a child, my brothers and sisters complained that I could have almost anything I asked. I used to think it was simply because I had some skill in argument that they lacked or some particular favor of my parents, but it took a grave misfortune for me to discover the truth.”

  “A misfortune, ma’am?”

  The councilwoman heaved a sigh. “My family and I were picnicking by the river one spring when it was very warm. All the snowmelt had swollen the banks, and the water was running very fast. My elder brother and I were playing by the bank when my little dog, Tot, wandered to the edge and was swept away. I cried and begged my brother to save him, but he didn’t want to risk the river’s fury. I was so frantic, I kept trying to persuade him, and finally, under the thrall of my words and against all sense, he waded into the cold river.” Lamia grimaced at the memory. “Neither my brother nor my dog returned.”

  I sat in shocked silence, thinking how awful it would be if my cunning was dangerous to other folk. But then my heart beat heavy, remembering Sweets, Farren, and Emerick, who were all cold in the ground. For the first time, I felt something approaching gentle toward Lady Folque, who sank down on the corner of my bed.

  “I didn’t realize until then that I had something more than a silver tongue. I’d put too much of my ‘skill’ into my plea to my brother, all at once. I didn’t tell anyone, of course. How was I to tell my grieving parents that I might be responsible for their suffering? It was especially knotty as my brother’s death made me the heir of the family estate, so I let them follow their own beliefs that he perished in a misguided act of heroism.” She stared down at the rings on her fingers. “I loved my brother,” she continued softly, “and would not have harmed him for every last coin in our family’s countinghouses. And yet, here I sit, the mistress of all of those treasures, and he is dead and gone.”

  A terrible thought struck me and I shrunk back. “So, Saph . . . the princess was right! You do hold power over the king!”

  Lamia p
ut her hands up in a frantic denial. “No, no, you must believe me, since that day, I have never exerted control over anyone. While I still fancy myself a persuasive speaker, I vowed I should never use it to its full extent again.”

  “I don’t understand,” I protested. “If you’re not the one trying to keep me from arriving in Bellskeep, who is?”

  Lady Folque pursed her lips as if she were weighing up an answer. “You’ll no doubt be brought to council tomorrow, so there is little harm in telling you that we have had reports from our confidants within the meeting of the South Council this year. The Ordish are indeed planning some sort of action against the crown. Whether it is an action against the city or the king himself, we can’t be sure.”

  “The fellows in the Wood knew we were coming,” I said carefully, not wanting to give away anything having to do with Jon. “Does that mean someone here told them?”

  The councilwoman smiled, but it had no light in it. “There may be someone working for Ordish purposes inside the palace. It would certainly explain the attempts upon your life. I don’t suppose I have to tell you it’s imperative this is all brought to light, especially with a royal marriage forthcoming.”

  Saphritte had begged me to keep my distance from the woman. Non, who I trusted with all I was, had told me always to trust my guts. Lark knew her people better than anyone. So, why was I so ready to believe in Lamia Folque? I still didn’t know if her cunning could influence mine—for all I knew, at any moment, she could tell me to go take a walk into the River. But what I couldn’t explain to Lark or Non or the princess was if I looked hard enough into her eyes, there were still echoes of that sad, scared whelp, missing her brother.

  “What can we do?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid there’s little room for compromise while the king sits upon the throne. His policies of dealing with the river people are at the root of the unrest. His daughter, however, is much more reasonable.”

  My fire sputtered out as quickly as it had come. “By the time the princess takes over, it’ll be too late.”

  The councilwoman rose from the edge of the bed and crossed back to the window, where night had already lit the clear, dark sky with stars.

  “Ma’am?” I asked. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No, my dear, not at all. But you’ve hit upon the problem,” she said cautiously. “A problem it may be within my power to correct.”

  Her meaning didn’t take root right away, but when it did, the dread it carried was colder than the icy stream in the Wood. “Ma’am, ain’t that . . . treason?” I whispered.

  “Sometimes, child, we must do the things that we know to be right, no matter what the cost. I serve Orstral. And if I can make certain that there is no more bloodshed, I will do whatever needs to be done.”

  “So, you’ll just . . . ask him to give up the throne for the princess?”

  She nodded her regal head. “If I can do it subtly. It must appear to everyone, including Her Highness, the decision be of his own will, so I must be cautious—make sure all in the council know what’s at stake before I attempt such a thing. After it’s done, I shall retire to my estate, leaving my council seat to my daughter, Adalise. It simply wouldn’t be right for me to remain. Not after that.”

  Just over a week ago, I’d been in Mama’s kitchen, peeling apples. Now, suddenly, I was sitting at the heart of the kingdom, whispering treachery in dark corners. Everything in me wanted to run and hide, to disbelieve Lamia Folque. But my cunning—the same cunning that saved me from Toly—told me she was true. A seed of hope cracked open inside me. Saphritte’s promise was stamped on my heart, deep and unfading as if it had been done by a smith with an iron brand. With the princess on the throne, I could go back to being Only of the orchard in time measured in months rather than years. The whole terrible journey could come to be nothing but a bad memory. I imagined the rumbling of the cart’s wheels as I rolled up to my house in the valley, Mama and Papa waiting for me at the gate, their arms open wide. I imagined myself watching for the Ordish barges at harvest, eager to see Lark, Rowan, and Jon. Not only that, but with a new queen on the throne, they’d be safe from the kingsmen ever after. The thoughts were so real, I could near taste ’em.

  “What say you, Mayquin?” Lamia’s voice broke in on my happy thoughts. “You are unsettlingly quiet.”

  I wrung my hands. “Ma’am, now that you’ve told me this, if anyone asked me, I’d have to tell the truth.”

  Lady Folque raised her chin. “It is a chance I am willing to take. I needed you to know my aims, Only. I hope to never have need of a falsehood, but if I do . . .”

  “You don’t want me to say anything,” I finished.

  The councilwoman had the grace to look repentant, but searched me for my answer all the same. “You would be doing a great service for all the people of Orstral.”

  And I’d be back in the orchard again.

  “Ma’am, not that I don’t believe you’re meaning well, but . . . could I think it over?”

  “I’d be more concerned if you didn’t,” Lamia answered. “It’s a simple mind that follows blindly without concern for consequences. And should this come to light, there could be some grave consequences indeed.”

  I shivered. The orchard. Jon. Not to mention the lady herself, risking her own neck and her family’s safety.

  Lady Folque could see the struggle writ plain on my face. “I’ll give you leave to wrestle your conscience a while. When you’re ready, send me a message.”

  She swept toward my chamber door, but turned back with a last thought. “You’re a brave girl, my dear. I know it’ll be difficult, but I hope we can rely on your courage when you assist in questioning the prisoners tomorrow.”

  My heart jumped straight into my throat. “The men from the Wood, they’re here? Now?”

  “You mustn’t fear, my dear, they’re locked away quite safely.”

  She thinks I’m afraid. “If I might ask, ma’am, where are they being kept?”

  Lamia patted my arm. “In the cells next to the barracks. I assure you, child, it’s quite impossible for them to do you any more harm. They’ll be questioned and then . . . justice will be done.”

  “When you say justice, ma’am . . .”

  Lady Folque looked down at the floor. “Ordinarily, the king is quite merciful, but what with the recent attacks on grain stores and talk of rebellion, I fear he’ll wish to send a message to the Ordish that dissent will not be tolerated.”

  “What kind of message?” I squeaked.

  The councilwoman looked at me with pity. “It’s not I that will sit in judgment on them, my dear, but I expect they’ll hang.”

  * * *

  LARK BORE MY tale with patience, even when it got messy. Even as I carefully skirted around Lady Folque’s plan. I trusted Lark more than anyone else here, but I didn’t want to burden her with treason on top of her forced servitude.

  “She said they were gonna hang,” I moaned, sinking to the bed with my face in my hands. “How foolish was I to think I’d be able to do anything?”

  “You weren’t foolish!” Lark insisted. “You’re trying to do right by your kin, and mine!”

  “They can’t send me down there tomorrow! Someone’ll ask a question I can’t answer without giving Jon away and then it’ll be over for my family, the orchard, all of it.”

  Lark frowned as she opened the wardrobe to retrieve yet another new bit of frippery I was expected to be turned out in. “I wish we knew who the fellow was who spoke to them in Farrier’s Bay. My folk are wary of landwalkers who turn up at the Southmeet. He must have seemed on the level for two dozen men to up and do something so foolhardy.”

  “It doesn’t really matter who he is now. Most of ’em are buried in the Wood and the other seven are gonna join ’em in short order if I don’t do something.”

  “It does matter!” she insisted
. “You think anyone’s gonna care why they attacked the caravan? No one’s gonna hear that story. They’re just going to know it happened.” The girl ground her teeth together. “They’ll just know that some wetcollars raised swords against the king. It’ll give that old eel leave to do whatever he likes to us.”

  The fury in her eyes gave me pause. “What if . . . what if that’s why the fellow at Southmeet wanted them to attack the caravan?”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “I mean,” I began slowly, my thoughts unspooling like thread, “he knew those whelps weren’t traveling with us. And if all they wanted was me, there must be other no-gooders, ones who were better fighters, that would have been easier to persuade to do something foolish.”

  Lark threw up her hands. “So why send my folk? To get them slaughtered?”

  “You just said it yourself! People are going to think the Ordish raised swords against the king. It’ll give him leave to do whatever he chooses.”

  “So . . . you think it was done to turn folk against us? More against us, that is?”

  “I don’t know, but it seems more likely than a stranger with a conscience wanting to help a group of desperate men get their whelps back.”

  We silently chewed on that bit of gristle until my stomach interrupted with a deep growl. Lark ran her hands over the gown she’d taken from the wardrobe. “We’ve got to get you proper for dinner. The king’s expecting you.”

  If there were a thing I didn’t fancy, it was sitting round a table, supping with the king. What if he wanted me to demonstrate my “gift” again? “I don’t suppose I could just take a bit of bread and cold meat here, could I?”

  “Not likely! The whole court’ll be dining tonight with the aim of gawking at the new jewel in the king’s crown,” she said, unpinning the brooch from my coat.

  “The council’s already met me!”

  Lark slipped the coat from my shoulders. “You don’t think the council’s all there is of the court, do you? You can’t throw a rock round here without it bouncing off the head of some lord or another. Not to mention the First Curate.”